24
Digitasdasd
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Mark after benefitting from a bit of a tow,
was none other than the fans’ favourite,
Fernando Alonso. Seb thought about
running around Fernando on the outside
of T1, and thereby muscling in to the inside
for T2, but prudently backed away at the
last millisecond, delighted, as least, to have
gazumped Mark.
Lewis, you ask? He with the mega-
Mercedes KERS system? He was dead-
level with Fernando off the line but lost
momentum when Fernando suddenly
flicked left in about fourth gear – a move
designed to disabuse Lewis Carl of even
thinking about moving across.
As starts go, it was sensational – and it
proved – if proof was needed - that the ‘two
moves only’ rule that they enforce for race
conditions (but thankfully not for the start!)
should be abolished in perpetuity. The
whole silly business was born of Michael
Schumacher’s tactics off the line, so what is
the point of penalising drivers for making
three moves later in the race, when just two
of them are contesting a position, and not
penalising them for ‘weaving’ at the start – at
the most potentially dangerous part of the
afternoon?
That wasn’t all. Vitaly Petrov, who had
qualified an excellent sixth in the Renault
that didn’t set fire to its revolutionary
exhaust system, all but lost the rear as
he exited T2. Nico Rosberg darted right,
Michael Schumacher darted left – and the
three of them headed off up the hill into T3
like that, with Michael on the outside and
looking as if he might just try to stay there.
He did.
Petrov backed away, his moment having
reminded him that his rear tyres were
probably still a little way from optimum
temperature, while Nico lived with the
inside approach to T4 for as long as he dared.
Michael, on the outside, arced down to a
late-ish apex and seized the corner as if he
was a 23-year-old hot-shot.
For how long could the Fabulous
Fernando stay in front? For a surprisingly
long time (17 laps), as it turned out. Seb
was of course all over the Ferrari on the fast
corners – T3, T9 – but Fernando offered no
holes and maximised the Ferrari’s strongest
points – to wit, it’s top speed (Fernando
was about 5mph quicker by the time they
reached terminal velocity) and its generally
good braking. Seb was near enough to be
able to flatten his rear flap on the pit straight
on virtually every lap of that opening phase –
but it was not enough.
Seb couldn’t pass the Ferrari with any sort
of confidence. Instead, he stopped early
for his first set of hard tyres (Seb’s second
stop) and ‘undercut’ Fernando on his pit
stop delta and out-lap. The fans sighed – but
then they shouldn’t have expected more:
the Ferrari was never going to beat the
Red Bulls or at least one (if not both) of the
McLarens around Barcelona, not when it
came time to running the hard tyres. It was
never a question of Fernando racing to the
‘right strategy’ or holding up the field for the
entire distance, Gilles Villeneuve-style. Those
days have gone. All Fernando could do was
take what was out there; and Fernando did
that to perfection.
Speaking of the p-word, Lewis was
conservative in that first stint when the
fuel tanks were full; he passed Webber at the
first round of pit stops by being two seconds
quicker on his in-lap and then three seconds
faster on his out-lap; next, after those first
stops, he put major pressure on Seb Vettel,
pushing him hard on the slower corners and
filling his mirrors. (Seb was at this point still
boxed-in behind Fernando, so there was
little he could do about it except hope that
Lewis would behave.) Then, on the hards,
the race began.
It turns out that the McLaren was at least
as competitive on the hard tyre than was the
Red Bull; this isn’t totally surprising when
you consider the flip side of that: on new
softs, there is no faster combination in the
world right now than Seb Vettel and the
RBR7 (give or take a Mark Webber pole or
two). The point is, the McLaren doesn’t have
the downforce to maximise the soft tyre. On
the hard, though, when everyone’s sliding,
the McLaren’s slight deficiencies are more or
less balanced out, indicating that it is indeed
at least the second-best car out there right
now (in terms of downforce level); and the
new, more durable hard allows drivers like
Lewis to do that balancing out for longer.
Seb and Lewis switched to used hard
tyres at about the same time (laps 34 and
35) and I don’t think anyone on the RBR
pit wall would have been surprised at this
point if Lewis had faded into a solid second
place. On the contrary, the flamboyance
that Lewis had shown in practice on the
hard tyre was now converted into absolute
maximisation of the components at hand.
Lewis was breathtakingly good on the
fast corners and could live with Seb on
the slow stuff. Only at the important, final
corner, where downforce comes seriously
into play – and where Lewis needed to be
close in order to activate his flap – did Seb
sustain any sort of useable advantage. And
then Seb’s KERS system began to give more
trouble, failing to discharge completely
over the lap.
They both switched to new hards for the
final phase. Lewis was there. Right there.
The critical zone was the braking area
for T1. Lewis would flatten his wing, gain
momentum, feint to the inside ... and
Seb would brake absolutely as late as the
Brembos would let him. Without a mistake
or even a bobble. Not one.
It was spellbinding racing – and there was
not a pass to be seen. Indeed, Seb, not Lewis,
had been responsible for the aggressive
passing much earlier in the race (after his
first pit stop), when he had scythed past
Jenson Button and Felipe Massa without
DRS (on a circuit on which historically it has
been almost impossible to overtake) and
then Nico Rosberg at the end of the straight
(with DRS).
No, the Seb-Lewis duel in Spain was a
classic example of brilliant motor racing
without the passing; as a spectacle it far
surpassed the wholesale place-changing
in Turkey, and before that in China.
Both drivers were superb in every way –
stunning to watch either as individuals
or as a pair. Lewis extracted all there was
to extract from a McLaren at Barcelona;
and Seb Vettel, the World Champion, was
exemplary in both attack, defence and
mechanical sympathy.
This, in my view, was his best win to date:
he never allowed Lewis the room he needed
at T16 – and he was faultless, as I say, under
heaving braking into T1.
Jenson finished third, almost unnoticed on
a three-stop strategy; the pole-man was only
fourth, having lost still more time in traffic
and with a relatively early switch to the hard
tyre; Fernando was an excellent fifth, having
delivered more than anyone could have
expected; and Michael, fighting oversteer
with spectacular balance, was a good sixth.
Special mention should also be made of
Nick Heidfeld’s drive from the back to eighth
(and third-fastest lap); to Kamui Kobayashi
recovering from a first-lap puncture to
finish tenth behind team-mate Sergio Perez;
and to Jarno Trulli’s mid-race pace in the
Mike Gascoyne Lotus. It was a relatively
promising weekend for Williams, too. Pastor
Maldonado qualified a creditable ninth and
Rubens (gearbox problem in Q1) actually set
the second-fastest lap of the race (behind
Lewis, on lap 60).